Visigoths

The Visigoths (literally "Eastern Goths") were a Germanic people associated with the nomadic Gothic tribes. In 376 AD, chased west by the Huns, the Visigoths invaded the Byzantine Empire and defeated the Romans at the 378 Battle of Adrianople. Relations between the Roman Empire and the Visigoths alternated between warfare and alliances; the Visigoths helped the Byzantines in defeating the rebel Arbogast at the Battle of the Frigidus on 5-6 September 394, but King Alaric I sacked Rome in 410 after besieging the city three times. In 418, the Visigoths settled in southern Gaul as foederati tribal allies of Rome, but they fell out with the Romans and conquered Toulouse, establishing a kingdom in southern France. The Visigoths also conquered northern Hispania from the Romans, and the 507 defeat of the Visigoths at Vouille by King Clovis I of Francia and the Franks limited the Visigoths to the lands south of the Pyrenees. The Visigoths converted to Catholicism in 589, abandoning Arian Christianity, and the Visigoths built several new cities and churches. They ruled the mighty Kingdom of Asturias in northern Spain until the Moorish conquest in 711, and the Visigoths woud later become the Spanish people.